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11. Mothership

Game: Phoenix (1980)

This arcade baddie was not super-hard. It was not graphically beautiful and it didn't deliver amazing dialogue. But what the Mothership did do was set the tone for digital generations to come. Over twenty years ago, Phoenix put gamers against a massive ship whose shields had to be blasted through as waves of space birds swooped in to attack. Once the difficulty of eroding the shield was over, it was a one-shot to kill the main alien. While not great in design, the Mothership belongs as a celebrated elder to bosses everywhere.